I was recently at dinner in Los Feliz trying to encourage a couple I've been friends with for over 20 years to come see my boyfriend's band play the following weekend. “It's really fun,” I said. “It's in a bar in the Valley, but Luis gives it the same energy as if he were playing the Forum. Plus, it's Friday night. You can sleep in on Saturday.” They nodded and then the husband asked a perfectly reasonable question. “What time does it start?”
“Around 9,” I said. “ish.”
Their faces lit up and their eyes widened as if he had just delivered the funniest punch line they had ever heard. “Nine?!” the wife asked. “At night?”
“Well,” I admitted, “9:15. The last thing at 9:30.”
Her husband laughed and said, “We're usually in bed by then.”
The wife added, “But if he ever plays a daytime concert, we'd love to go.”
I've had the same conversation with several friends over the years and they usually end the same way. The truth is that I understand it. Because on the nights when my blues-playing, guitar-playing boyfriend doesn't have a concert, we usually go to bed at 9:30, too.
Luis and I met when we were 40 years old. He was my daughter's guitar teacher, although taking her to her lessons was under the jurisdiction of my late husband, Joel. Luis and I had met only a handful of times. Although I found him attractive, we weren't on each other's radar until I was almost a year widowed. A friend had invited me to one of his concerts and I went. We started talking and saw each other several times over the next few weeks.
What we thought might be an affair turned into a genuine relationship. It's been almost 10 years and we have not only grown together as a couple, but we have gotten older.. Or maybe just older. We're still young, but it's been a while since I've been given a card, and we often text each other to see if one of us has the reading glasses that the other can't seem to find.
We used to look forward to getting couples massages together. Now we are excited when our colonoscopies are the same week. We used to frequent a neighborhood Italian restaurant and drink old-fashioned, vodka martinis with our clam linguine and eggplant parmigiana. Now, we frequent the pharmacy to make sure I control my cholesterol and that he has enough blood pressure medication.
The same goes for my friends, many of whom I've known since we were in our 20s. Back then, we talked obsessively about our budding careers and the people we would end up marrying, and we wondered if we could really have it all.. We now constantly talk about our hormones (or lack thereof), how we handle our aging parents, and how “today's kids” (even our own) are plagued by anxiety and depression. Again, we are not old per se, but we are not young either. Unless we live well beyond 110, we are not even middle-aged. So that segment of our lives is actually far behind us.
Joel, who died unexpectedly at age 50, was a middle-aged man in his 20s. Of course, at the time we had no idea that was the case. We weren't a couple yet. When Joel and I met, we were working at a record label on the Sunset Strip. Part of our job was to see emerging and established bands, sometimes several in one night. It wasn't out of the ordinary to see the Rave-Ups play at the Palomino in North Hollywood at 9 pm and then run up the hill to end the night with an 11 pm concert by the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Hollywood Palladium. And that would be during the week. Neither of us would think twice about how late things started or how far we would travel. We loved seeing live music. It was fun. We were young.
It's a cliché, but when I look at photos of myself at that age, I think, “She was so cute. So open. So motivated.” I had no idea what the future held: young widowhood, a major career change, and love later in life with a man I will likely continue to grow old with, a man who is not Joel.
Love with Luis has always been different. Maybe it's because falling in love again, especially as a widow, was so unexpected. We had lived full lives when we got together. Although neither of us feel obligated to get married, we hope that we will become grandparents together at some point in the future. That's a thought that makes us smile.
Having said all this, I am convinced that playing music is what keeps Luis young. That and his hair. He has a lot of that. Thick, wavy, even unruly at times. In our years together, there has been more salt than pepper, but that hasn't stopped anyone from asking if they could smell it. Yes, friends and strangers alike ask if they can get very close to it and smell it. We think this is strange. But he is a charismatic and engaging musician, and this may be par for the course.
When he's on stage, singing with his band, jumping and kicking with his guitar strapped around his neck, it's hard to believe he's closer to 60 than 25. Maybe music is the fountain of youth. Or maybe it's as simple as doing what you love. And I love being in the audience, watching him do what he loves. It's something that makes me feel young too. Especially when it's late on a Friday night, even if my friends have chosen to stay home. They have no idea what they are missing.
The author lives in Los Angeles and wrote the best-selling memoir “Widowish.” She is working on her second book, a middle grade novel. She is on Instagram: @melissagould_author
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